A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Viscerally vivid . . . a sucker-punch of a novel, edged with knife-sharp black humour and shot through with moments of startling beauty . . . half Tarantino and half pitch-black northern realism' Guardian 'A tremendously exciting novel . . . A brilliantly realized voice: Steve's every utterance is the product of where he comes from . . . as blunt and brutal as the fells he works among' Times Literary Supplement 'A spiky, precisely focused novel with flavour, intensity, and oodles of character' The Times 'Preston's debut arrives like a punch to the gut . . . This is an elemental tale shaded in tones of heroism, machismo, moral intensity, and mythmaking. It's also a love song to the landscape . . . Gritty, gripping, and fearlessly committed' Kirkus 'A blistering debut . . . This dark and inspired tale pulses with life' Publishers Weekly 'Taught, intelligent and beautifully told' M. J. Hyland 'A startlingly original addition to the literature of northern